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eldavojohn writes "Bad news everybody. According to Entertainment Weekly, Futurama has been cancelled (again). The renewal of Futurama back onto television was met with great fanfare but sadly it appears that Futurama's luck has run out for a second time. The second half of season 7 will air from June 19th to September 4th and that will be it."

"Fucking awful" is a bit strong, but they definitely weren't up to par. I'm not surprised it was cancelled, and at this point I'd be much happier if they put the series to bed instead of continually trying to bring it back, as it will inevitably get worse every time they do.

Apparently those of us viewing it at my house have souls made of sterner stuff. Maybe it just seems enjoyable compared to Seth McFarlane's triple parade of misogyny, but I get more laughs per 22 minutes out of the Simpsons current season than most of what's on television.

That is easy to explain, the constant bashing of your skull with reality shit like Honey Boo Boo has left you brain damaged so that even half ass jokes are funny.

But if you compare the first couple of season of both shows to recent episodes there really is no comparison as it was MUCH funnier and written better in those first seasons than it is now. You are simply so horribly pummeled by the reality dreck that honestly anything actually written and having a punchline will seem like the best of Richard Pryor compared to the white trash fights and farting that is considered humor today.

Personally I'm waiting for "Ass:The Movie" or "Oww my balls" to air because it feels like we have just about dumbed down that damned far.

I picked it up again from Season 20 when it went to HD. It's hit or miss, but pretty good overall. Definitely not the same show it was 20 years ago, but riffs on pop culture more often in the vein of Family Guy. And I'd still much rather watch The Simpsons than Family Guy.

They were worse than the movies?? Ugh. Those movies are the reason I didn't bother watching the new episodes.

Though at least this means it will never get as embarrassing as the Simpsons. Homer has jumped the shark so many times now the only plot point they haven't rehashed is Homer *literally* jumping a shark. And they almost did that one in a clip show a decade ago that was so bad many ironically reference it as the figurative shark-jumping moment as well.

I agree here. I did like the movies myself (most of them). However the rebooted episodes just weren't up to the quality of the originals. Maybe there's some irrational emotional response there, such as nostalgia, where you ony remember the good bits and filter out the negative ones...

Anyway, it doesn't hurt to cancel it. What does hurt is leaving something to go on too long.

The new seasons had excellent character growth and development. While the original series was great, it was childish and down right infantile at times, the movies were awkward like the teenage years, and the two new seasons were the beginning of a quality adult audience show. It is one of the ONLY animated shows on television at the moment that caters specifically to the 18-25 demographic, and it's smart too. Take the mathematical proof they created for the show [gizmodo.com]. When was the last time any television show created a tangible real world theorem?

This, this, a thousand times this! "The Late Philip J. Fry" is my favorite Futurama episode. So witty and full of good jokes and quotable lines. ("Just slow it down, I'll shoot Hitler out the window.")

But I must concur, the quality of the episodes varies in the last two seasons. I hope there'll be new, excitong shows around the corner.

I don't really think the newer seasons developed the characters... I think they tended to continue the Federalization that had started to set in through season 4 of the original run.

IMO, establishing facts about a character, revealing the back-story of a character, or establishing a relationship between characters is not the same as character development... This is something that the later writers need to understand.

Agreed. When they were brought back suddenly they became all about making modern-day topical jokes (about Lady Gaga, Twitter, etc.) and throwing the whole "it's the year 3001" bit out the window. Plus, after Leela banged Zap Brannigan, again, willfully...something was just lost. In the sexing-up of the characters was another huge detraction.

All that to say, I bet if it had been brought back on Adult Swim, things would have been different.

The episodes are roughly 1 million dollars each, so I would estimate about $26 Million for another season.

Do you have any actual knowledge or are you just making stuff up?

I remember reading that FireFly episodes were $1M+/episode which was part of the problem, but being a space western with decent special effects, that made sense. Props and full-time actors are expensive. However, if a 22-minute animated series episode costs $1M, then I am sure some cutbacks can be made...

When Futurama first premiered in 2000, it was the most expensive cartoon on air to produce due to the quality and the mix of CG with hand drawn animation. That is part of the reason it was initially cancelled by Fox. It had more to do with the cost than the actual ratings. I don't think that is the case anymore, but still when you watch the opening sequence, realize that there are over 80 layers of animation in just that few second span.

certainly cutbacks can be made to get per-episode costs to something low enough to kickstarter fund.

That's correct. The cutbacks would presumably be not having the original voice cast, writing team, or production crew. You would still need to purchase the rights from Fox, though. The syndication rights that Comedy Central bought from Fox are said to be the single most expensive acquisition for Comedy Central. They paid Fox $400k per episode just for syndication rights.

I apologize for confusing you all of these years. Soviet Russia jokes are from the comedian Yakov Smirnoff, who used Soviet Russia jokes to contrast life under a Communist regime with life in the US. His punchlines were that things in Soviet Russia are opposite from the US. The implication behind my signature is that in the US corporations control the government.

Like Grog6 said, my signature really isn't a joke, it's not supposed to be funny. And I'm shocked that my explanation of a Yakov Smirnoff joke got modded to +5 here on Slashdot. Next someone is going to wonder why Natalie Portman would be covered in hot grits.

I agree with you regarding the "movies" that were really just 4 episodes with a loosely coordinated plot-line. That seemed to be more about making the economics of reviving the show work (i.e., direct to video sales plus delayed airings on CC). However, I thought they really fell flat on their face and were not engaging. It was obvious that the writers just couldn't make a 2 hour plot line broken up into 4 parts work.

However, I thought the follow-up season on CC was actually pretty decent. I would not argue that they were the best the series had to offer, but they seemed like worthwhile inclusions, imho.

I agree with you regarding the "movies" that were really just 4 episodes with a loosely coordinated plot-line. That seemed to be more about making the economics of reviving the show work (i.e., direct to video sales plus delayed airings on CC). However, I thought they really fell flat on their face and were not engaging. It was obvious that the writers just couldn't make a 2 hour plot line broken up into 4 parts work.

However, I thought the follow-up season on CC was actually pretty decent. I would not argue that they were the best the series had to offer, but they seemed like worthwhile inclusions, imho.

Oh, I'm certain they were excellent, but the problem is they became too familiar. You can only do Fry is an idiot, so many times and it ceases to be funny.

That was the thing: the original run had left wing "propaganda" in it, too (global warming, garbage, oil tankers, Al Gore, vegetarianism, etc.) but they always turned those things on their head to make them funny. I never felt like they were beating me over the head with their message. Instead, it just felt like a natural part of the story. More recently, though, there was less funny and more message, which just isn't really that fun. If I want to be preached at, I'll just surf the web.

The newer episodes just haven't had that same flare the older ones did.

A couple of them even felt forced.

Better end a series on a decent note than to drag it on forever (Simpsons, Family Guy, etc)

Like Family Guy, IMHO, the jokes and themes were funny for a while, but wear thin in time. I can't even be bothered to see what's happening on the Simpsons, since I stopped watching it about ten years ago. Futurama has effectively flogged every dead horse the writers could find. Time to move on.

The Simpsons became a ghost ship a long time ago. The crew died, no one was at the helm, yet it kept sailing on--for no apparent reason and with no one particularly wanting it too. A like a ghost ship, it's a pretty hideous, decayed version of its former self--way more sad than noble now.

Couldn't agree more with this sentiment. The old episodes felt very clever and smart with their jokes often playing on scientific themes to make the punchline. That's what I really enjoyed about the original Futurama. After their comeback it seemed like they had changed to appeal to a wider audience, making more generalized jokes and story lines. I found early on I could predict the outcome of most episodes, at first anyway. By the end of their comeback the episodes were so disjointed it felt like the entire plot twisted two or three times an episodes. In the end I'm not even the least bit surprised they were canceled again. Fans like me were hoping and expecting Futurama to come right back to the old smart funny ways but were instead greeted with another generic cartoon spewing generic jokes to a futuristic theme. Maybe it was a mistake to come back in the first place, maybe they had a good run and should have been left with the cult following it had. Now its just a flop for the general audiences. C'est la vie.

Absolutely one of the worst shows on television. How Tosh.0 stays on the air at all is beyond me. It's basically some supposedly hipster-ish dude making snarky comments about busted-my-nuts-doing-something-stupid videos. Blecch!

Is it bad that I read that in Bruce Willis's voice, complete with the trailing expletive?

Speaking of fun plots, they should have done one in which they unfreeze John McClane (voiced by Bruce Willis, of course). He falls for Leela, but keeps calling her Leeloo. Then he happens to be at a spaceport when they discover that an asteroid is heading towards earth, and the only way to stop it is to foil the terrorists who have taken the spaceport hostage so that he can steal a ship and mine the asteroid. Meanwhile, he is constantly being annoyed by Dr. Zoidberg who keeps talking in a high-pitched voice while wearing a light blond wig and a bizarre leopard-print suit.

That's the problem with TV. It's not about users, but customers. The customers of the show are the advertisers. The users of the show would be willing to pay more for the show, but the customers aren't. So dead it goes.

Or... we can just let the show die and make room for new ideas and shows. I loved Futurama, but it's OK for shows to end, even good shows. It's better to die out than to see a show that drag on way too long.

My wife and I are some of the few people out there who love Bob's Burgers. But, then again, I was a big Home Movies fan as well, which always had more cult status than actual success. When Bob's Burgers is "on", it's funnier than nearly any other show out there.

I mean, a science fair project that is a musical between Thomas Edison and the elephant he electrocuted... How is that not hilarious?

Does anybody in America actually think Bob's Burgers is good other than apparently Fox and the series creators?

Yes. Do you always assume that anyone who differs with you over sense of humour must be in a minority?

Fox made a big deal out of Allen Gregory but I could tell from the trailer that it would be a big fail. What was it? A big fail.

Oh, so you're the guy who's opinions always exactly mirror the public at large? Oh, no, wait, you can't be, because that guy would be too busy banging models on his private tropical island rolling on a bed stuffed with the rest of the billions of dollars he's made.

Every now and then I will watch a new episode of American Dad and it's never funny any more [in my opinion]. Even Family Guy is hit or miss [in my opinion]. Sometimes it's great [in my opinion]. Sometimes it's not even a little bit funny [in my opinion].

It's the perfect time and subject for an experiment I have been considering. I think that broadcast networks are no longer needed or perhaps simply not quite so necessary. If Groening were to keep a team of enthusiast artists and the original voice actors, I would be willing to bet people would subscribe to Futurama online paying micro payments or simply not worry about that and they can sell ad space on their own streaming host server. The point being that the internet has enabled much. And publishing and continuing a favorite TV series is probably a good thing to try.

It's too late for "Firefly" (or is it?) but maybe not for Futurama... and seriously, without network censors?? It'll be WAY better.

Groening had nothing to do with Futurama, other than lending his name to it. I don't even think he was the showrunner on the Simpsons after the first season. If you listen to the commentary tracks on either series, you'll probably understand why (while everyone else talks about the writing and satire that made those series great, all he talks about is the animation, as if people were tuning into the Simpsons for the animation quality).

Imagine if they used the voice cast for the live action version. Not a single character could even be made to look like the person they portray except maybe Phil Lamarr and Katey Sagal. But even that wouldn't be easy.

Inexplicable actor replacement: WELSHIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ok, granted, it was a guest star, and was done only because James Doohan politely declined to do the Star Trek episode)

So other than that you've got Jumping the Shark, which most folks would call the movies. I'd fine with the show either way. It had a nice run, even if the comedy central episodes didn't quite have that mind blowing awesomeness (which, who knows, maybe after a few years in reruns they'll develop.)

TFA (maybe not this FA, but some FA I read this morning before I saw it on Slashdot) says that Groening is looking for another home for the show as "we still have more stories to tell". I know I know, they always say that, but all I'm saying is, Groening reportedly has not made the decision to irrevocably end the show. So it's not exactly like the browncoat thing, where sad overweight acne-encrusted fans in poorly made costumes plead with... I'm sorry, did I say that out loud?

If the rumors are to be believed, Futurama cost $1.3 million per episode to produce back in 2003 during the original run. We know Comedy Central gave them a smaller budget this time around, so let's just assume a million per episode.

So let us say we all want to fund a season of Futurama (putting our money where our mouth is):

16 episode season x $1,000,000 = $16,000,000.

Now assume the average audience is 2 million. Some would be willing to pay, some would not. But assume the lost TV viewers are made up for with the DVD buyers (who are worth a lot more). That works out to around $8/person to fund a season.

If I had the option, I would gladly pay $8-$10 per season.

For reference, AMC's Mad Men cost between $2-2.5 million per episode. In the first season, it didn't even break a million viewers. The second season had 2 million, same as Futurama.

I don't believe the economics are at the root of the cancellation; it's probably an executive trying to make their mark by shaking up programming and cancelling Futurama makes way for his/her pet project - one they can take credit for launching.

Netflix is willing to spend $100 million on 26 episodes of things like House of Cards, an average of about $3.85 million each. It's not inconceivable that they might be willing to spend $1 million an episode on Futurama.

I did when it was original and new... of course, I was a lot younger back then, too, so I presume the fact that I liked the show then had a lot to do with my maturity level at the time (low. Really low.) The Sega and SNES games were pretty good, though. Fun at least.

And FWIW, I hate Tosh.

Ditto. Since when did "mouthy douchebag who thinks he's funny" become the norm for comedians? I miss Bill Hicks...

It teaches people that transsexual and transgendered people are dishonest and sexual deviants.

I never saw it teaching any such thing, in fact in the cases of transgender that I remember the bigoted characters tended to be shown in a bad light, or others highlighted how they were wrong.

You don't see too many people complaining about the fact that Fry had the piss taken out of him constantly for being stupid. Why, because apparently it's ok to make fun of somebody who was born stupid, but not somebody who was born in the body of the opposite sex.

FTL was already resolved within the first run of the show. Cubert pointed out that nothing can go faster than light, the professor replied "that's why scientists increased the speed of light". Also, it would seem that ships run on Alcubier warp drives (at least the planet express ship seems to, in that the engines don't move the ship, but instead move the universe around the ship.)